Yearbook Collection
by NotFlyingWithOtters
Summary: A series of stand alone Johnlock songfics based on 'Yearbook Collection' by Sleeping At Last. It will include the previously published 'From The Ground Up'. Potential triggers.
1. Yearbook January: January White

**January White belongs to Sleeping At Last.**

**Stand alone post-Reichenbach fic**

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_So let's press undo.  
Rearrange the old and call it new-  
January white._

Sherlock wished he could undo everything. Undo 'The Fall', undo breaking John's heart over and over again, undo everything. He tried, god did he try to delete everything, but it stuck and wouldn't go. But in the beginning of January, in one of the largest snowstorms London had ever seen, John lightly touched his hand and forgave him. Sherlock went into shock, and oh so gently reached for him.

"Can we start over?" John's whispered kisses told him yes.

_Every calendar is playing the same old trick:  
A year will disappear, replaced with counterfeit  
But we'll never really mind._

The year after Sherlock returned was the worst. Constantly on their guard just in case, every month that rolled round fraught with danger, every moment Sherlock was in the public eye and dangerous time. Yet as time went, more and more of the danger seemed false, seemed fake, counterfeit. And after a while, as more years clicked past on the never ending march of time, the two men ceased worrying.

_'cause if nothing else, we're given a little time  
To change the game, a chance to redefine  
Everything we are,  
In our January white._

Moriarty had called it a game, called Sherlock's endeavour to bring him down and to protect John a game, called it a futile and scoffed at his efforts. Ultimately though, Moriarty had lost. Sherlock had won the game, had changed it to his favour. His return had redefined the boundaries and his cold view of his own mortality. As January rolled around again, it was John that taught him to understand that he didn't need the games any more. He could decide his life for himself, with John by his side, his life was everything they were, are, and could ever be.

_This year is a sealed envelope,  
A culmination of hopes,  
The lottery result that we've been crossing fingers for._

Every January, the 1st, John would give him an envelope and seal it. In it were notes, one for every day of the year. Long and short, John gave him this envelope, all his hopes and dreams and let him read one a day for the year. The next year was the same. Each year started and ended with an envelope, some notes good and some bad, but all the essence of what they were, what they meant to one another. Sherlock hoped for a good one sometimes, he crossed his fingers and gambled with his feelings to help John. To do what John wanted and needed him to do. Hope was what carried them through each stumble, the promise of good things to come.__

We could paint our walls a lighter shade of blue,  
Or we could pack our bags and change the entire view  
To January white.

Whilst he'd been gone, Mrs Hudson and John had painted his room. It was probably for the best, who knew what was festering in the corners from long forgotten experiments. But it still hurt to return to pale blue walls with no character and no feeling, like a part of his soul had been pulled away. John fixed it, of course. He always fixed Sherlock when he needed to, without even asking. Sherlock's stuff was moved into John's room, they shared one room now. Sherlock preferred the view of London from the top floor, it was new. When winter hurried around again, the snow coated the window and all they could see was the clean and beautiful, January white.

_ If nothing else, we're given a little time  
To change the heart in which we change our minds;  
Our hourglasses turn._

Time passed, the world kept turning, seasons and months passed in a flash. Sherlock's heart gradually warmed to the idea of love and life. To the idea of John loving him and him loving John in return. It changed his mind and his entire way of life. Time no longer seemed like a constraint, it was now something to revel in. As each year drew to a close, as each fresh one began, another hourglass was turned over, ticking away their time together. Before John's love had opened his eyes, Sherlock would have protested and fought the time, but now he accepted it. He held John's hand as though it would anchor him, and let the sands of time trickle past them.

_ This year is a sealed envelope;  
With apprehensive hope  
We brace for anything._

Since 'The Fall', John had been anticipating Sherlock leaving, he'd prepared for it again. Sherlock never left. The apprehension and anxiety was still there, the terror that one day Sherlock would up and leave him again never left, and John always made a back-up plan in case it happened. Nearly every negative note in the sealed envelope was John's fear that Sherlock would once more leave, that the man would go and never return. He was always prepared. The gun was cleaned every month and loaded with the safety on in the bottom drawer. There was a substantial amount of sleeping pills secreted around the flat. Some of Sherlock's drugs were hidden in his possessions. He wouldn't live without him again if the situation presented itself.

_ I swear, I understand that nothing changes that,  
The past will be the past,  
But the future is brighter than any flashback._

John had nightmares. Sometimes of Afghanistan, mostly of Sherlock smashing into the pavement and actually dying, bleeding out in his arms. The past haunted the soldier, and that broke Sherlock's heart. On bad nights, Sherlock would hold John in his arms and rock him slightly, whispering their plans for the future, promising him that tomorrow would be better. Swearing that things would be easier. The promises of the future helped John cope with the haunting memories and constructed notions his brain created.__

Well, we could let our guards down a little easier this time,  
We could trust that when there's joy, there's nothing dark behind.  
In spite of history,  
Hope is January white.

Despite the past and the nightmares, Sherlock and John learned to trust one another again, learned to open their hearts without fear of repercussions. Slowly, the fear faded, and bad days were replaced by more good days, and the good was not always immediately followed by the bad. Sherlock still felt the guilt of having done what the army hadn't managed and broken John, he always hated himself for that; but despite their past, the two learned to hope for a brighter and better future. That tomorrow would be better. With every January that passed it grew easier, the snow cleansed their dark thoughts and made the world brighter. The world was better with every January snowfall.__

This year, we're starting over again  
Letter openers in hand,  
A chance to take a chance.

John didn't stick by his own rules that year. He handed Sherlock an envelope and a small flat bladed knife to slit the top open and gave him a wry smile. When Sherlock slit it open, clouds of shredded paper spilled from the wound in the paper like the January snow that heralded the start of something new and fresh. From that paper Sherlock saw the corner of another, thicker paper. John's handwriting, left handed and shaky, but legible. _Marry me?_

_ I swear, I understand that the past will be the past,  
And nothing changes that,  
But the future is brighter than any flashback._

Sherlock accepted, he knew he would have anyway, or even asked John himself. They curled up on the sofa and stared at the falling flakes of snow outside the window, watching the change from snow to rain, from lovers to whatever came after. The nightmares still came, and the hatred was still there, but the future they promised one another managed to overrule all of the hurt and darkness of before.

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	2. Yearbook January: The Ash Is In Our Clot

**The Ash Is In Our Clothes belongs to Sleeping At Last. Sherlock belongs to Mofftiss and BBC, also Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.**

**Okay, so this song is instrumental,**** I'm working by title alone. To be honest, I can see this song being used in BBC Sherlock it's just so emotive, powerful and beautiful.**

**This is kinda Wholock because it's loosely based on the Christmas time when the Sycorax ship was destroyed and ash rained on London.**

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The cigarette in his slender hand burned with a deep red, a fiery shade like that of the embers of the fire in Afghanistan they lit to combat the freezing desert nights. Sherlock drew in a deep breath on the end of it, the smoke coiling around his face like he was something otherworldly. The bright flash of his eyes complimented this idea, the iridescent blue/green that John could not pin down penetrating the curling and ever shifting veil of smoke around his angular features.

"Stop it." Came the rough drawl that John had grown accustomed to. "You're staring. Stop it." For someone who had no concept of personal space, of human emotion or anything of the sort, Sherlock was hyper aware when he was getting stared at, and for some reason it unnerved him.

"Sorry." John sipped his tea and returned his gaze to the bright white computer screen in front of him, the cursor of his blog taunting him. His shoulder ached and he sighed, staring past the screen until it turned into a blurry combination of pixels. He had nothing to write, nothing he could think of writing. There had been no cases in a while, which was why he'd allowed Sherlock to smoke.

"Want one?" Sherlock blew a perfect smoke ring and stared at John with a piercing gaze. He waved his lit cigarette at the soldier, the ash dropping onto his black trousers. John stared.

"A...?"

"Cigarette, yes. Do you want one?" Sherlock sighed, not moving to brush the ash from his clothes. John focussed his attention to the tiny flakes and gave a small sigh, standing to brush them away from Sherlock's lap, mindful of the actual cigarette. There was a silence that seemed to stretch forever, as John stared up at Sherlock. Sherlock turned away and gave a small cough, and then the spell was broken.

"Sorry. Again." John withdrew his hand, a soft powdery white amount of ash clinging to his skin. Sherlock looked down at him with luminous eyes and mindfully stubbed the cigarette out, a small amount of ash dropping around the two of them, dusting the hem of John's jeans ever so slightly, and lying like snow against Sherlock's dark shirt. John stood abruptly and shook his head. "And no, I don't."

"Oh." Sherlock stretched out on the sofa again, gazing at the ceiling and fingering the nicotine patches on his forearm that _weren't helping_. John squeezed his arm and gazed out of the window behind him, staring at the slowly falling snow, like the ash of before. Sherlock was beside him in a moment, staring out at the welcome relief after weeks of iron grey skies and bitterly cold winds.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" John murmured softly, still staring at it as it drifted past, like a cleansing fire had just finished and the ash was settling now, covering the ugliness of the bustling city, bringing everything to a glittering and long awaited halt. Sherlock looked down at John beside him and reached for his hand, squeezing slightly as he stared at the window turning white.

"Yes." Sherlock's voice was soft and broke a little. John seemed to become aware that they were holding hands, but didn't pull away. If anything, he shifted his hand so that Sherlock could hold it better. Sherlock squeezed again and gazed at the skyline, the purply grey clouds far above them thick and heavy, pregnant with the snow drifting down.

"We should go out." John squeezed his hand tentatively, his hand fluttering around Sherlock's like butterfly wings. "I mean, in the snow not..." Sherlock nodded and released his hand reluctantly, before turning his gaze onto John.

"Both." Sherlock murmured, the small flakes of ash on his clothes drifting to the floor. John turned, a little in shock and his blue eyes wide.

"Both?" He queried as they moved to the door. Coats and other warm clothes were disregarded and they slipped out into the street. It was strangely warm, heightening the idea of ash that swirled and settled in their clothes, landing on their skin with a chill that was welcome in the warm air. John settled against Sherlock as the strange snow drifted around them, settling in their clothes and hair, landing on his hands and drifting to the floor.

"If you want." Came Sherlock's whispered reply. John turned and looked at the consulting detective to see if he was being sincere. The snow had settled against his alabaster skin and on his shoulders, and the man was gazing at the sky, enraptured. John squeezed his hand again, not pulling away this time.

"I want." The snow continued to swirl around them as they stood, the world for once so silent and still that John swore he could hear Sherlock's heartbeat in tandem with his own. John gently turned and let himself be held instantly by Sherlock's arms, the taller man holding him against his chest. The ash from before fell onto the small drifts of snow and was buried by the cascading flakes. Sherlock gave a soft chuckle.

"We look like we're covered in ash." It was true, the snow had settled on their hair and shoulders, on their clothes. John's hair was peppered with white, and Sherlock just looked as though he'd been artfully dusted. John tilted his head.

"What an odd thing to say. Apt, of course, and right as always. Just... strange." John murmured into his shoulder, breathing him in. The scent of fire from the lighter he'd used to light the cigarette, the scent of smoke from the cigarettes, and something that was all Sherlock. Sherlock shrugged a little and squeezed him before releasing him to stare at the snow all around them, the queer purple/orange light that was hazy around them.

The snow was in their clothes, in the upturned collar of John's shirt, in the hem of his jeans. In Sherlock's shirt and sprinkled along his neckline. It was like ash, it got everywhere, it covered them in a light sprinkle of something that had seemed magical when falling and remained to be so until it melted into their clothes. For some reason, Sherlock likened the snow to ash, and when they had changed and their wet clothes were hung up to dry in the bathroom and John was settled safely in his arms, Sherlock murmured that the ash was in their clothes.

He was right, the memory of that night stayed with them, the touch of the snow could not be forgotten. It was like ash, delicate and gentle and always there but not to the point of annoying. The ash was in their clothes, but they both found that they didn't mind.

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**Please review if you have time, I am horribly conscious that my writing might not be that good/in character whatever.**


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